


better than disneyland

by shrill_fangirl_screaming



Series: sometimes a family is nine unrelated superheroes and an adopted teenage boy [2]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, I WOULD LIKE IT NOTED THAT THIS IS A PETER & SHURI FIC NOT A PETER/SHURI FIC, i just think they would be really good friends, look i just fell in love with Shuri and want her and Peter to go on a playdate, one-shot unless someone persuades me otherwise, reading the prequel is not necessary but it sure is a lot of fun, the teen rating is solely because I use the fuck word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 01:58:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shrill_fangirl_screaming/pseuds/shrill_fangirl_screaming
Summary: Tony takes Peter on a field trip, and Peter falls in love.





	better than disneyland

**Author's Note:**

> An update on what canon I acknowledge is required, because my original fic was posted prior to Black Panther coming out: Black Panther is easily one of the best standalone Marvel films ever made, so I’m keeping as much of it as humanly possible given that I retconned Civil War in its entirety. I don’t want to make the Avengers’ involvement in the events of Civil War canon because I’m a Steve/Tony shipper at heart and that movie ruined my life, but I do want to keep the events themselves, at least insofar as they affect Wakanda and T’Challa. So, I’m just going to say Zemo did it to everything, because the Marvel execs didn’t bother giving him an actual backstory with real motivations so I don’t see why I should. Also, we’re temporarily ignoring the Bucky after-credits scene, because I ain’t about to figure out a way to include the Winter Soldier in my patchwork amalgam canon after retconning almost every piece of content with him in it, plus I'm really afraid the canon is going to ship him with Shuri for no good goddamn reason and if they did I'd have to riot. 
> 
> Additionally, I did not do a lick of research about Afrofuturism or the Wakanda of the comics, and I am a white girl, so please correct me politely if I fuck up.

“All right, kiddo, come on. We’re going to Disneyland,” Tony said, clapping Peter on the shoulder.

“Wait, really?” Peter asked. “That’s so cool, I’ve always wanted to ride-“

Tony sighed. “No, Peter, but where we’re going is way better. Come on, hop in the Quinjet.”

Peter frowned. “I really should ask Aunt May-“

“This is time sensitive, kid, come on, let’s _go_.”

Well, he could afford to miss a little school here and there. Besides, “Tony Stark made me do it” was an ironclad excuse that got him out of trouble on almost every front. So, he got in the Quinjet and carefully strapped himself in- being around Tony made Peter a huge fan of safety precautions, and also Cap would kill him if he heard Peter skimped on the seatbelts. “Nothing’s better than Disneyland,” he grumbled, mostly on principle of being a teenager and wanting to grumble.

Tony waggled his eyebrows. “Wait and see, kiddo,” he said, and took off.

Peter really hated distracting Tony while he was flying one of these things, because even a focused Tony’s flying could most charitably be described as a series of very stupid near-death experiences. Tony had a grudge against literally everything else in the sky, including clouds, and insisted on playing absurdly dumb, absurdly dangerous games of high-speed chicken with everything, including stationary objects. Natasha told him once that Tony found this “fun”. Peter privately thought that Tony Stark’s definition of fun was most other people’s definition of insanity.

Between fear literally stealing the breath from his lungs and how short the flight was in a Quinjet, Peter failed to ask Tony where, exactly, they were going. What would Tony Stark think was better than Disneyland?

They landed on top of a fairly unassuming-looking building, and a dark figure was waiting for them on the roof. “Showtime, kiddo. Make me proud,” Tony said, before snapping on a pair of Ray-Bans and strutting out of the Quinjet like he owned the place.

Did he own the place? This was a real concern when dealing with Tony.

Peter followed, tripping over his Converses as he tried to look cool, but he really had no idea how to go about doing that. He had on a physics T-shirt and skinny jeans, he was about as cool as a black car left outside on a summer afternoon.

“T’Challa. Black Panther. Cat guy. Been seeing a lot about you on the news, nice to put a face to the name,” Tony said, extending a hand to the good-looking, dark-skinned man wearing a very familiar necklace.

 _That’s_ where Peter had seen this guy before- Steve always had CNN on in the background of whatever room he was in, and they’d exhaustively covered what they’d called “T’Challa’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Week.” What happened during that week? No idea. Peter could barely keep track of _his_ superheroes, let alone Black Panther, so he wasn’t quite sure what Black Panther’s deal was, but the fight scenes he remembered seeing looked _so_ awesomme.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tony Stark,” T’Challa said, shaking his hand. Immediately Peter was suspicious- no one ever said that and meant it and had good intentions. Tony Stark was a lot to take in even for Peter, and Peter counted him as a quasi-surrogate-sort-of-father-figure-but-not-in-a-weird-way-or-anything. “We’re glad you could make it.”

“Me too, the Maria Stark Foundation is always looking for good works,” Tony said. He squeezed Peter’s shoulder. “This is Peter Parker. He’s my intern. He’s my right-hand man about superhero tech. Well, left-hand man.” He glanced at Peter, who was looking at Tony like the man had just stabbed him in the gut. “Banner. Come on, kid, you know your rank.”

T’Challa had extended a hand to Peter, who quickly juggled his phone to his left hand so his right one would be free to shake. “It’s, um, an honor to meet you, Mr. T’Challa, your highness, sir.”

“You as well,” T’Challa said.

Ah, so he was just polite. Peter relaxed.

As T’Challa led them into the building, he said, “Shuri? If you could come here please, I have someone I’d like for you to show around.” There was a pause, and then he said, “I know I can’t boss you around just because I’m the king. I’m bossing you around because I’m your big brother. Come here.”

Peter could barely focus on that, though, because the inside of the building was absolutely insane, and he said that as a guy who spent a lot of time in Avengers Tower.

The thing about Avengers Tower was that it was shaped entirely by Tony Stark’s personal aesthetic combined with Steve Rogers’s restraint, which meant that it was somehow simultaneously utilitarian and futuristic. Like, sure, the toaster might talk back to you, but it was sentient and mobile so it could deliver your toast to you when you sat down at a breakfast table with nine superheroes, Peter, and Aunt May. Futurism plus utilitarianism, plus a dash of steampunk when the mood was right, because Tony was a Nerd.

This building was nothing like that at all.

It was almost alien, but not like Thor’s shiny Norse palace in the sky. More like, alien as in totally disconnected from pop culture depictions of what futurism should look like. Like, lots of stuff Tony made looked like it should be on the Enterprise or an X-Wing, but none of this stuff, it was all totally foreign. About half of the surfaces he could see were sleek and white and smooth, all clean lines, but then the other half was black with art on it, like the black velvet paintings Peter scribbled on as a kid, but, like, _good_. Colorful, for being on a black background, and in circles. Tribal, almost. Was that a racist thing to think? Calling it tribal? 

“Big brother, _you_ are the one who gave me this job, I assumed this was because you wanted me to do it,” a girl said, storming up to them. She was maybe a year or two older than Peter, dressed all in white with hair in a pair of buns on the top of her head. She sized up Peter and Tony. “Who are these people?”

Tony whipped off his sunglasses, which Peter knew he’d put on for this purpose and for this purpose only. “You know who I am.”

The girl looked somewhat sadly at him, then shifted her entire attention back to T’Challa. “Brother-“

“Shuri, I’d like you to meet Tony Stark and Peter Parker. I invited Mr. Stark here to discuss our outreach initiatives, but while we do that, could you show Peter around? He has an interest in science,” T’Challa said.

Shuri sized Peter up. He straightened his back, trying desperately not to embarrass Mr. Stark. “Okay, fine,” she said. “But you better not break anything, white boy.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Peter said. “I mean, I’ll try not to. I mean-“

Shuri was already walking away, down another hallway from where T’Challa and Tony were walking. Peter shot one desperate look at Tony before hurrying after her. “This is our science building,” Shuri said. “I’m working in my lab. You can look at things there. That’s our tour.”

“Good tour,” Peter said, because Shuri was giving off strong I-can-kill-you vibes, and Peter had learned from Wanda and Natasha that the smaller and more helpless a superheroine looked, the more quickly they could have you pinned to the floor vomiting up your lungs. Shuri looked like a bunch of toothpicks stuck together, so she could probably murder him with a single thought.

And then they arrived at her lab, and Peter’s brain actually short-circuited.

“Marry me,” he breathed, once he could even sort of take in what was happening in the room.

“No,” Shuri said.

“No, I mean-“ Peter jerked backwards, full-body blush turning his entire face red- “Not that- I just- I was talking to the room, because, um. I like tech, and, uh. Holy fuck.”

Shuri laughed, picking something up and tossing it at him. “Look at this.”

Peter whimpered, turning the marble-looking thing over in his hand. He didn’t even know what it was and he wanted to pick it apart and put it back together. “Let me live here,” he breathed. “I don’t eat too much, I’ll work for my keep, just please let me play with your technology. Please. Please. Please.”

Shuri laughed again. “You are an absurd child.”

Ordinarily, Peter would get defensive about his age (and besides, Shuri couldn’t be _that_ much older than him), but the marble had these tiny moving parts and Peter couldn’t even be bothered to stand anymore, just sank to the ground cross-legged and started playing with it. Shuri patted him on the head. “Let me know when you want something actually interesting to play with,” she said.

“Actually marry me,” he whispered, and he wasn’t sure if he was talking to the insane Wakandan tech, or Shuri, or her lab, or the concept of science, or what. He was just having a lot of feelings and had no idea what to do about any of them.

 

T’Challa and Tony walked in maybe an hour later, and Peter was still playing around with Shuri’s communication marbles. They were, without question, the coolest goddamn things he’d ever gotten to play with, and they weren’t even close to being the coolest thing in the lab. He’d tried to let Shuri work, but everything was so cool and she knew so much, so he knew he had been a bit annoying with the endless questions. She took it like a champ, though. She was cool. Almost as cool as her lab and these _f_ _ucking awesome communication marbles._

“Hey, kiddo,” Tony said. “Didja show up the princess with your science-y know-how?”

T’Challa, Shuri, and Peter all laughed. “I know more than him,” Shuri said.

“Sure you do, honey,” Tony replied.

Shuri smiled at him. “I know more than you,” she corrected. “Arc reactor technology. So quaint. So… 1920s.”

“This-“ Tony drummed his fingers on the reactor- “This is cutting-edge tech.”

“No, my brother’s suit is cutting-edge tech. How much storage space does your suit require, again? How long does it take to assemble?” Shuri arched an eyebrow. “Mine is better. You got outdone by a sixteen-year-old girl. Deal with it.”

Peter looked up at Tony. “Also, I live here now.”

Shuri frowned down at him. “I don’t remember agreeing to this.”

“I’ll sleep outside if I have to,” Peter said, clutching at the cool-ass fucking communication marble pieces in his hands. “Please. Just- please. I love cool tech, Mr. Stark, you know this, and-“

“Traitor,” Tony said fondly, pulling Peter to his feet. “Anyway, the kitty-cat here challenged me to a few rounds, but I thought I’d give you first dibs. Want to head down to their gym? See what happens?”

“You do know my brother has superpowers and a suit designed by _me_ , right?” Shuri asked. “T’Challa would wipe the floor with him. Let him stay here and play with my old junk.”

Peter looked questioningly at Tony, who nodded. “I’m, uh. I’m Spider-Man. I’m, like, a new Avenger. An Avenger-in-training.”

“He’s got heightened reflexes and training from Natasha Romanoff, plus another few tricks up his sleeve. Don’t get me wrong, he’s going to lose, but he might be able to land a few punches,” Tony said, squeezing Peter’s shoulder.

Peter made a face. “Thanks.”

“This, I have to see,” Shuri said.

 

They made their way to the basement for Peter’s humiliation. He changed into his Spidey-suit, which he’d brought with him because being alone with Tony Stark meant a 50% chance that he’d need it either for a near-death experience or for science. Or, in this case, apparently both.

“There is no shame in yielding,” T’Challa told him very seriously as he stepped into the makeshift ring, pulling his mask on over his face.

Peter laughed a little. “I fight the Avengers, dude- sir! Your highness. I, uh. I never win fights. Me and yielding are old friends.”

“It is to teach you humility,” Tony said loftily, lounging on a tabletop.

“Learning at the foot of the master for that, I see,” Shuri said.

“Okay,” Peter breathed. “Okay, okay.” At a normal volume, he said, “Okay, your highness. I’m ready.”

T’Challa looked at him somewhat doubtfully, but his mask sort of shwoomed onto his face as if by magic, and then he took a big, obviously telegraphed, halfway-pulled swing at Peter. Peter, used to much less subtle attacks by the Black Widow, quickly backflipped out of the way. “I promise they trained me at least a little,” Peter said. “Like, I’m _gonna_ lose, but I’m probably not going to die.”

“I just don’t want to murder a fourteen-year-old,” T’Challa said.

“I’m fifteen!” Peter squawked indignantly, and then T’Challa came at him in earnest.

Peter had done enough time sparring with Captain America to know what it looked like when someone with superhuman powers was going easy on you because they weren’t here for actual murder, and T’Challa was _definitely_ doing that. However, the fight was now real enough that Peter had to try, to trust his spidey-senses (that Ned called his super-anxiety) to duck and dodge out of the way.

However, he really wanted to do his family proud. They taught him to fight well, not just shadowbox a foe into exhaustion, so he thought he might as well whip out his semi-secret weapon. Secret insofar as he was pretty sure T’Challa didn’t know about it, because why the fuck would T’Challa know a damn thing about Spider-Man. So he waited, and the next time there was an opening, he webslung T’Challa’s hand to the ground. While the shock of that was still in effect, Peter did his best to turn the Black Panther into a web burrito.

“What is this?” T’Challa asked. “Is this- are you _emitting_ this?”

“Yes,” Tony said.

Peter glared. “No, it’s a synthetic compound, I made it in chemistry class. Neat, right?”

T’Challa nodded, looking at his wrappings. “Definitely,” he said, then ripped his way free. “That’s a surprise.”

“I figured that was the only way I could get the upper hand for a second,” Peter said. “You know, if it was a surprise.”

“Good thinking,” T’Challa said, then attacked again.

Peter, while good, was a child who was also primarily a tech geek and not, like, a fighter. The match ended, as everyone knew it would, with Peter pinned to the ground. “I yield,” Peter said.

T’Challa, smiling, hauled Peter to his feet. “You fought well,” he said.

“Thanks!” Peter said, beaming. “I’ll pass that along to Nat and Cap- they do most of the training for me.”

“You wound me, kiddo,” Tony said, pressing a hand to his heart.

Peter smiled- sure he did. “Why is your suit glowing purple?” Peter asked.

T’Challa smiled. “Let me have a couple of surprises too,” he said.

“Guess that means I’m up,” Tony said. He twisted the bracelets on his wrist, and the Iron Man suit assembled around him.

Peter skittered backwards, because he had absolutely no interest in being anywhere near this fight. Tony was definitely going to go as nuclear as possible to try and beat T’Challa, and if Peter had learned anything in the last hour or two, it was that Wakandan tech beat Stark tech every time, no contest.

“Can we get to a bunker or something? Peter asked Shuri, pulling off his mask. “I think Tony might accidentally murder us trying to beat your brother.”

She sighs. “Idiot. Let’s go back to my lab. I can make your suit better.”

Without waiting for agreement, she started trotting back upstairs. Peter followed, eager to be anywhere but here. “I, uh. I have no doubt that anything you make would be an improvement on this, but I gotta say no. This has, uh, emotional significance.”

“Nostalgia?” Shuri asked.

“Something like,” Peter said, running a finger along the cuff, where there was a tiny Black Widow hourglass embroidered in nearly-invisible thread. It had become a tradition, somehow, for the other Avengers to steal Peter’s suit while Tony was working on upgrading it, for the purpose of hiding things in it. Cap slipped notes in it, mostly along the lines of, “I’m so proud of you, son.” Wanda attached one of her silver rings to the inside of a glove. Falcon wrote _REDWING_   _IS COOLER_ on Peter’s little spider-drone’s belly. Things like that. No matter how convenient and functional and #aestheticgoals Shuri’s suit would be, it wouldn’t be full of love. Not worth it.

She turned to him, expression unreadable. “You really don’t want a vibranium suit?”

He shrugged. “No, I’m good.”

“Interesting,” she said, and continued on towards her lab.

 

An hour later, Tony and T’Challa came back. Neither one looked visibly battered, but they both fought in supersuits that protected their meat sacks. Peter saw the fight’s damage on the Iron Man briefcase, which looked more than a little worse for wear. T’Challa’s suit, on the other hand, looked pristine.

Yeah, Peter wasn’t really surprised by that one.

“Okay, kiddo, buckle in, it’s a school night, gotta get you home,” Tony said.

Peter frowned. “It’s Friday.”

“You have school on Fridays,” Tony replied.

“That’s not… that’s not what school night means,” Peter said.

Tony made a face. “Sure it is. Chop chop, pack up, playdate’s over, time to go home.”

Peter rolled his eyes but started gathering up his things. As he did so, Shuri perched herself on a countertop and asked Tony, face full of false innocence, “Who won the fight?”

“It was a draw,” Tony said, at the same time T’Challa said, “I did.”

Shuri smiled. “My tech beats yours, Stark. Every time. You got beat by a sixteen-year-old girl.”

“I _drew_ with a grown adult man who took glowing purple magic drugs that gave him superpowers,” Tony said.

T’Challa shook his head. “No. You lost because of the suit my sixteen-year-old sister built, which is better than yours, because she’s smarter than you.”

Tony pointed at her. “I will come back, I will have a suit specifically designed to override the energy redirection bullshit you programmed in there, and I will make you eat your words.”

“Sure you will,” Shuri said, engrossed by the bit of tech in her lap.

“Peter, she’s a bad influence on you, we’re leaving,” Tony said.

Peter made a face. “That’s what Cap says about you, like, ninety-nine percent of the time.”

“Never listen to Cap,” Tony said, “He lies.”

“You told me to always listen to Cap less than twenty-four hours ago,” Peter said.

Tony looked around, spluttering with exasperation, between the three jackal grins that surrounded him. “I get no respect! None!” he shouted just theatrically enough that Peter knew he was mostly joking, and stormed out of the lab.

“I don’t want to get stranded in California, so I should probably follow that,” Peter said. “Thank you so much for having us and letting me play with your communication marbles because they are honestly the coolest things I have ever seen in my goddamn life.” He bowed at the both of them, immediately regretting his life choices. (But it made sense at the time! They were royalty, people bow to royalty, _it made sense at the time,_ is what Peter tells himself later when he's lying awake at night wondering why he bowed to Shuri and T'Challa that one time.)

He fled the scene.

“Hey, wait,” Shuri called. Peter turned and just barely managed to catch the marble she threw at him, even with his Spidey-senses. “For you.”

Peter smiled. “Thanks! I’d love to take this apart and-“

“No, dummy,” Shuri said. “So we can talk.”

“Right,” Peter said, pocketing the marble. “Right, right. So we can-“

“CHILD!” Tony thundered.

Peter froze. “I should go.”

Shuri sniggered at him as he retreated down the hallway to the marginal safety that was Tony Stark.

“Black Panther cheats,” Tony said, once they were buckled into an airplane. “Energy redirection? Cheating. Totally cheating.”

Peter nodded. “Sure thing, Mr. Stark.”

Utter betrayal filled Tony’s eyes. “I will _find out who paid you_ ,” he said, voice dire.

Shuri had added fifty bucks to the pot when she found out why Peter called his mentor Mr. Stark. No way Tony could ever track down _everyone_ who’d ever paid him to keep it up. Pepper Potts had slipped him a twenty with a wink. So had Rhodey, and the janitor who cleaned up the lobby of Avengers Tower, and a tourist just passing by the outside to take pictures with it. Peter just smiled and said, “They’re cool. Wankandan tech is so cool, you don’t even know.”

“You’re fired,” Tony said morosely.

“Of course I am,” Peter said, rolling the communication marble over in his hands. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also in the interests of full disclosure/credit, Tony’s walking toaster that I briefly mention is in fact Calcifere. Calcifer is quite possibly the best OC I’ve ever seen in the Avengers fandom and, as a Steve/Tony shipper, I just sort of assume everyone’s read everything scifigrl47 has ever written. If I’m wrong, well, the walking toaster is from scifigrl47’s Toasterverse, so named because toaster. 
> 
> Also, "T'Challa's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very-Bad Week" comes from tumblr, as does the idea of calling Peter's spidey-sense "super anxiety". 
> 
> If you liked this story, hit me up on my tumblr, i-am-having-an-emotion!


End file.
